Sugar Blossom

Earth: The Melting Planet

All these years we know earth as the blue planet. But since the global warming the proper name should be: The Melting Planet, since almost all ice layers in the planet surface are melting down rapidly with the extreme warming.

# Melting Antarctic Sea Ice

Earlier investigations left no doubt that Earth’s northern extremity has warmed at nearly twice the global average over the last century, causing a dramatic shrinking of sea ice and disrupting the region’s ecosystems.

Antarctica, which is one of the most cold area on the planet beside Artic, apparently feeling the global warming in more extreme condition than other region in earth. The Antarctic Peninsula has an increase in average temperatures of almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years.

“Heavy sea ice has been the norm in the Antarctic, but in the 1990’s sea ice disintegration has begun”, notes Robin Ross, a biological oceanographer with the University of California at Santa Barbara. During the year 1998, the Antarctic displayed a record low in winter sea ice.

# Melting Arctic Sea Ice
The Arctic, with an area about the size of the United States, is seeing average temperatures similar to the Antarctic, almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the planet as a whole. Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 250 million acres — an area the size of California, Maryland and Texas combined.

In a N.Y Times article (Nov. 17, 1999) it was reported that scientists have discovered that from 1993 through 1997 average Arctic sea ice thickness was six feet. This represents a significant reduction in Arctic sea ice from 1958 through 1976 when average thickness measured 10 feet. This means that in less than 30 years, there has been a 40% loss of arctic sea ice. In a Washington Post article (Dec. 3, 1999) it was noted that in the Arctic, sea ice is shrinking at a rate of 14,000 square miles annually, an area larger than Maryland and Delaware combined.

According to a report by Norwegian scientists, the arctic sea ice in about 50 years could disappear entirely each summer. Researchers at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center based their predictions on satellite pictures. These pictures showed that the Arctic winter icescapes decreased by 6% (a Texas-size area) during the last 20 years.

# Greenland’s Ice Sheet Melting
In a recent study by researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shows that Greenland’s ice sheet, about 8% of the Earth’s grounded ice (Antarctica possessing 91% of land ice), is losing ice mass. A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is melting along Greenland’s coasts yearly, accounting for 7% of the annual global sea level rise. Measurements over the last century suggest that sea level has risen 9 inches, enough to cause flooding in low-lying
areas, when a storm occurs. Sea level increase could worsen, if the present trend continues, says William Krabill, lead author of the NASA study.

# Melting in other Parts of the World
Glaciers are melting on all six continents. The park’s Grinnell Glacier is already 90% gone. If present warming trends continue, all glaciers in Glacier National Park could be gone by 2030. The Bering Glacier, North America’s largest glacier, has lost 7 miles of its length, while losing 20-25% of parts of the glacier. Ice cores taken from the Dunde Ice Cap in the Qilian Mountains on the northeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau indicate that the years since 1938 have been the warmest in the last 12,000 years. The Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya has lost 40% of its mass during the period 1963-1987 or at a much faster clip than during 1899-1963.

In the near future, it is possible to loss all the ice surface which will lead to the natural imbalance and causing a gigantic global catastrhophy of more extreme natural disaster & natural habitat extinctions following them.

Why we wait longer if we can do something to save our only fragile planet called earth? Yes, even one man can make a difference by being responsible in maintaining our own environment balance.

Be more environmental friendly and ask other to be more conscious of what is really happening.